


what's behind and what's before

by xinzui



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, this lay dormant in my writing folder for 5 weeks wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 17:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9617237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xinzui/pseuds/xinzui
Summary: “Jedha boy,” Chirrut says, and it takes Bodhi a moment to realize that he’s talking to him.“Y – yes?”“Your pain,” Chirrut says, and there’s something indescribably gentle in his voice that makes tears prick at Bodhi’s eyes. “Your grief. I feel it, too. Under that Imperial uniform, you really are one of us.”





	

She has the same eyes as him. Bodhi stares when he sees Jyn for the first time, brooding in the corner of the ship as Cassian frantically works on the controls. His home is exploding underneath them and here’s Galen Erso’s girl – hardy and haunted, just as her father was. Just as her father _is._ Galen Erso is still alive, tucked away in a research facility on Eadu – although Bodhi knows that that might change very soon.

“Pilot,” Cassian calls after they make the jump to hyperspace and he has a moment to breathe.

“Bodhi,” Bodhi says.

“Bodhi,” Cassian amends, glancing back. “Do you remember the coordinates for Eadu?”

“Oh,” Bodhi says. “Yeah. Eadu.”

He calls them out and Cassian punches them in. Jyn’s hostile, guarded stance is undermined by the frightened look in her eyes.

“Tell me, Baze,” Chirrut says from the other side of the ship, quietly. “All of it?”

Then, more sharply: _“Tell me.”_

Baze’s expression is unreadable. “All of it.”

Bodhi lowers his head and exhales slowly, shakily. Bor Gullet has removed much of the clarity from some of his memories but he remembers his mother’s face and the way she used to ruffle his hair. He’d be desperately sad if he weren’t so numb.

 

“Why do you do that?” Jyn asks him on the way to Scarif.

Bodhi looks over at her, so lost in thought that he barely comprehends her question. “Do what?”

“That,” Jyn says, gesturing at his lap. Bodhi looks down and realizes that she’s referring to how he’s been rubbing at his goggles with his thumb for the past few minutes.

“Oh,” he says. “I don’t know.”

K-2SO chimes in. “Coping mechanism, I believe – to help soothe the nerves.”

Bodhi casts a cursory glance at the droid. None of the droids he’s ever met talk this much – and, if they do, he’s never been able to understand them. He’s not sure if he likes it or not. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

Jyn looks like she wants to say something but opts not to, sitting back in her seat and busying herself with blaster maintenance. Bodhi watches her for a few moments more – observes the way she unconsciously furrows her eyebrows when she focuses, the distinctive set of her jaw – before placing his goggles back on his head and turning back to the controls.

It’s only a little while before K-2SO speaks again. “You’re doing it again, Pilot. I am referring to how you have a habit of rubbing your goggles. She pointed it out earlier.”

Bodhi exhales quietly, movements ceasing. “You don’t need to tell me every time, thanks.”

“You seem stressed,” K-2SO remarks. “Would you like a back rub to take your mind off the mission? I’m excellent at them.”

From behind them, Jyn huffs out a laugh. “Did Cassian program you with that, too?”

Bodhi can’t help but smile as K-2SO says, mildly: “No. And he rejects it every time I offer.”

 

“Bodhi. Bodhi,” Cassian’s voice crackles in through the comm after what feels like years of silence. “Mission success. Making our way back to the ship now.”

Bodhi sinks to his knees, closing his eyes and releasing a shuddering breath. Outside the ship, the battle rages on, blaster bolts firing from both sides so rapidly that they blur together to become one and the same. Bodhi’s hands are shaking furiously as he presses the button on his comm. “Copy that, Captain. Cassian.”

Then, after a brief moment of hesitation: “May the Force be with you.”

 

The flight back to Yavin 4 is very quiet. Even K-2SO doesn’t seem to have anything to say other than an offer to pilot the ship himself – Bodhi accepts, grateful that the droid seems to be able to sense how shaken he is – as they ascend from the surface of the planet. For the second time in as many days, Bodhi watches the destruction that the Death Star leaves in its wake from the safety of a ship and his heart aches.

Those few surviving Rebels that managed to make it onto their ship are very quiet down in the cabin as Cassian clambers up into the cockpit. Jyn sits next to Chirrut, looking exhausted – mentally as much as physically – as Chirrut reaches out and Baze takes his hand wordlessly. Very soon, Jyn’s eyes close and her head lolls over to rest on Chirrut’s shoulder. Chirrut shifts slightly so that Jyn’s head is in a more comfortable position, thumb rubbing circles into the back of Baze’s hand slowly and steadily.

Bodhi watches Chirrut and Baze and recognizes part of himself in their faces: the kind of haunted look that only comes from growing up in a place where the planet itself resonates to its very core with the echoes of spirits from a faraway time. He remembers Jedha and a lump appears in his throat, so unexpected and so sudden that he feels he might choke on it, on thinking of how much he’s lost in such a short time.

“Jedha boy,” Chirrut says, and it takes Bodhi a moment to realize that he’s talking to him. He looks over at Chirrut, surprised – although he really shouldn’t be, given all that he’s seen Chirrut is capable of.

“Y – yes?”

“Your pain,” Chirrut says, and there’s something indescribably gentle in his voice that makes tears prick at Bodhi’s eyes. “Your grief. I feel it, too. Under that Imperial uniform, you really are one of us.”

Bodhi stares down at the goggles in his open palms as the tears threaten to spill over. “How long have you known?”

“When I felt you in the cell next to ours,” Chirrut says, voice unbelievably steady despite all that’s happened in the last few hours. “Your heart and mine, and Baze’s – they are all carved from the same stone.”

Baze grunts quietly and Bodhi looks up to see Baze watching him with a level gaze.

“I’m sorry you lost your home,” Bodhi says.

“I’m sorry you lost yours,” Chirrut replies, and he isn’t smiling but there’s a kind expression on his face. “What was left of it, anyway.”

Bodhi swallows heavily and looks back down at his hands, covered in dust and dirt. He’s not doing his goggles any favors by scrubbing at them with these.

As if on cue, a presence, warm and oddly comforting, takes the seat next to Bodhi’s. Cassian hands Bodhi a clean cloth and Bodhi looks over at him, not quite able to understand the look in Cassian’s dark eyes, but accepts it with a nod of the head.

The rest of the flight passes in silence.

 

The Rebel Alliance is happy to take them, Senator Mothma declares after their medal ceremony. All of them have proven themselves firm friends to the Rebellion and should they wish to remain part of it, they will be welcomed with open arms.

Bodhi is the first to say yes. Jyn, Baze, and Chirrut are quick to follow. Bodhi is sure he catches Cassian smiling when they all agree to stay, although it disappears quickly, as smiles are wont to do here.

 

That first night, Bodhi lies in his bunk, on a mattress softer than he’s accustomed to, in a room larger than he’s accustomed to, and, by some miracle, manages to fall asleep.

He discovers another thing he isn’t accustomed to: dreams. He dreams of a mother who would scold him for tiny wrongdoings but tell him she loved him for far less. He dreams of the sounds of sizzling street food and shouting vendors all blending together to become the noisy chaos of the streets of Jedha. He dreams of the Death Star, rising over the horizon, of green light –

Bodhi wakes with tears on his face and visions of his mother, swallowed by the wreckage, echoing in his head.

He doesn’t know where to sit for breakfast, is what he realizes in the morning. It’s a veritable cacophony of noise when he enters the mess hall for the first time and is immediately disoriented by how many people there are. Bodhi stands by the door for a good minute, utterly taken aback by how beautifully disorganized everything is, as opposed to the Empire’s dining halls, where everything is orderly and anyone who makes too much of a fuss is escorted away.

Bodhi pushes through the crowd, which parts easily as people move around each other in fluid movements – if he were to close his eyes, he’s sure it would almost feel like he were navigating the ever-changing streets of Jedha City.

Thankfully, he keeps his eyes open and spots Jyn with Baze – the former of whom looks just as out of place as he feels. Bodhi makes his way to them and sits down next to Jyn.

“Pilot,” Baze says, more of a declaration than a greeting, cheerfully making his way through an entire loaf of bread.

“Good morning,” Bodhi says nervously. Then, to Jyn: “Isn’t this strange?”

Jyn nods quickly, then pushes the full plate in front of her over to him. “You can have the rest of my food, if you want. Baze kept insisting I take more and I didn’t want to tell him I couldn’t possibly finish all of it until it was too late.”

Baze chuckles to himself as Bodhi swallows a laugh. “Thanks, Jyn.”

She smiles mildly in response and Bodhi finds himself watching the way her mouth moves in fascination, remembering a man who used to smile in the exact same way. He’s not sure she herself knows how many things she shares with her father – mostly little things that Bodhi picked up in the few times he spoke to Galen Erso but can’t ever forget, especially not now that a living reminder of them is sitting next to him – but doesn’t quite know how to bring the subject up.

 

Cassian teaches Bodhi how to fly a U-Wing. Or, rather, he insists on being there the first few times Bodhi takes the thing out for a test flight, reminding Bodhi that he’s his superior officer every time Bodhi tries to protest.

“Why don’t you just let K-2 come with me? It’d save you a lot of trouble,” Bodhi rationalizes, loving the way Cassian sets his jaw in an attempt to look solemn.

“As your superior officer, I’m coming with you, for the sake of your own safety,” Cassian declares.

Truth be told, Bodhi doesn’t mind it much, no matter how much he pretends to bellyache. Cassian’s good company, after all, and even his presence is enough to be soothing. They don’t talk much except for the odd directive from Cassian (usually followed by an exasperated shake of the head from Bodhi) but Bodhi feels as though he knows Cassian better every time they come back to the base.

He watches Cassian in his downtime, fascinated by the way he goes about his daily business with vicious efficiency, saving his smiles for those few fortunate enough to see him when he gets a moment to breathe. Bodhi catches these smiles often and a little more sometimes – when he stays in Cassian’s bunk in the evenings, he might be so lucky as to hear Cassian softly singing songs Bodhi doesn’t recognize in a language Bodhi can’t understand.

 

“It troubles you still,” Chirrut says lightly one day, standing behind Bodhi in the shooting range. Bodhi looks up to meet Chirrut’s gaze – unseeing but still piercing. He’s not sure why Chirrut is even here but the thoughtful look on Chirrut’s face gives Bodhi the impression that it might be because of him.

“What does?”

“Home,” Chirrut says simply. “You think of it often.”

Bodhi shrugs, trying to feign nonchalance, then remembers that Chirrut is blind and there is no fooling him. “Of course I do. Don’t you?”

“Jedha was the only home I’d ever known,” is Chirrut’s mild response. “I have been wondering – why become involved with the Empire in the first place?”

Bodhi pauses, swallowing quietly. “I needed money. My mother was getting too old to work.”

“Only your mother?”

“The other one died when I was very young,” Bodhi says, thinking of the family photo that his mother kept on her bedside table: of her and her wife, kissing three-month-old Bodhi on both cheeks. “Empire bombs. It was just me and my mother. I needed some way of supporting her and since Jedha was under Imperial rule – well.”

Chirrut hums quietly. “Some would say there is no cause nobler than that undertaken for the sake of a loved one.”

“Are you one of those people?”

“Yes,” Chirrut says simply. “And that is why I came here to speak with you.”

Bodhi’s brow furrows and Chirrut continues: “Baze wants me to invite you to come to our quarters this evening for dinner.”

Bodhi can’t help but laugh then, thinking about how absurd it is that Chirrut’s preamble would lead up to this. “What’s the occasion?”

“You’ll have to find out,” Chirrut says, smiling beatifically.

Bodhi doesn’t know what to expect as he makes his way down the corridor that evening, reading the names on every door, until – there. _Imwe/Malbus._

He pushes the door open and is greeted by a scent that is overwhelming and familiar but that he can’t quite identify – at least, not until he sees Baze sitting at a small table and ladling dumplings into bowls of soup. Bodhi remembers, all of a sudden, the way a friendly street vendor named Tashma who set her stall up across from the entrance to the Temple of the Kyber used to do the same thing.

Chirrut, sitting across the table from Baze, raises his hand and beckons Bodhi over when he hears the door click behind him. “Come.”

Bodhi pulls out the last chair and sits down in it, his legs shaking. Baze hands him a pair of chopsticks. “Eat up, Pilot.”

“You – this –” Bodhi stammers, staring at Baze and Chirrut, dumbstruck. “It smells –”

“Like home,” Baze finishes for him. “You aren’t the only one who thinks about it.”

Bodhi closes his eyes and inhales it, takes in not only the scent of the food but also the smell coming from the robes that Chirrut and Baze still wear, stubborn in their preservation of the memory of Jedha, of a planet before it was wrecked by war. When he opens his eyes again he can’t help but beam, so grateful that he thinks he might cry. Chirrut takes Bodhi’s hand under the table and squeezes it lightly. Baze hides his smile behind his bowl.

 

Cassian bursts into Bodhi’s bunk late one evening, breathing heavily, with a wild look in his eyes. Bodhi looks up from his holo-pad in surprise. “Cassian?”

“They – Skywalker, he’s – he’s done it,” Cassian says, all his words blurring together in his excitement. “The Death Star’s been destroyed. It’s done. Galen Erso – his trap –”

Bodhi reels back and it feels like the wind has been knocked from his lungs. Before he knows what he’s doing he’s crossing the room to throw his arms around Cassian, pressing his face into Cassian’s shoulder as he feels tears begin to spill from his eyes. Cassian takes a step back, surprised, but hugs him back tightly as Bodhi thinks of Jedha and his mother and weeps and weeps.

 

Luke Skywalker is a farm boy from Tatooine, Cassian had said. Bodhi sees some of that rough, earnest charm in the way Luke beams from ear to ear as he speaks to Jyn.

“I really can’t thank you enough, Ms. Erso,” he says, reaching out to shake her hand vigorously. “You, your father, your team. We never would’ve done it without you.”

“I should be thanking you for making my father’s sacrifice worth it,” Jyn replies, smiling hesitantly – and there’s that curve of the lips again, the way the corners of her mouth rise as though pulled by strings, just the way Galen Erso had smiled when he pressed the message into Bodhi’s palm and told him that this would be the key to saving the galaxy.

Luke excuses himself quickly: being a newly minted war hero, there is no shortage of people who want to speak with him. Bodhi watches him go, surprised by how brightly Luke smiles, and wonders how long it will take for that light to go out.

Cassian bumps his shoulder against Bodhi’s lightly. “That’s the poster boy we’ve been looking for.”

Bodhi huffs out a humorless laugh, looking over at Cassian. “He doesn’t seem very Rebellion.”

“No, I’ll admit, he doesn’t,” Cassian says. “But hope comes in many different forms. Like Skywalker, and –”

Cassian is looking back at him now, and something in his eyes makes it feel like the first time. “Like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That was what I felt when I heard you had defected. Hope.”

“I was only doing what was right,” Bodhi says.

“We are here because of you,” Cassian replies, and smiles.

 

Jyn leaves Yavin 4 two days after the Death Star is destroyed.

Cassian is looking very serious indeed one day when Bodhi finds him in the mess hall, poking at his food with his fork but not eating any of it. K-2SO sits next to him and chatters to a droid with spindly legs and countless lenses that all move in different directions.

“What’s wrong, Cassian?” Bodhi asks, sitting down across the table, because no matter how good Cassian is at concealing his emotions, Bodhi’s gotten very good at picking up on his friend’s feelings.

K-2SO clears his throat (insofar as he can – the reality is “simulating the noise of one clearing one’s throat”, as he’s pointed out to Bodhi numerous times before) and shoos the spindly-legged droid away. “Cassian is in a mood because Jyn Erso departed this morning.”

Bodhi is at a loss for words for a moment, quietly stunned. He would’ve thought that Jyn would stick around longer – if not for the cause, then for Cassian. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“Would you like a back rub?” K-2SO offers, kindly but unhelpfully.

Cassian jerks his head and Bodhi isn’t sure who it’s directed to and whether it’s an affirmation or a denial. “She said that she has been on her own for a very long time. Being here… she didn’t feel like she belonged.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but Bodhi understands. Something about Jyn had always been incongruous with the Rebellion: Bodhi had only come into contact with Saw Gerrera for a short while and what memories he had were largely unpleasant, to say the least, but there was more of Saw’s ferocious conviction in Jyn than there had ever been Galen Erso’s ability to conform.

Cassian manages a rueful twist of the lips that isn’t quite a smile as he looks up at Bodhi. “I’m sure it’s not the last we’ll hear of her, though.”

He’s right. Two weeks later, the Rebellion gets wind of the rather violent destruction of an Empire-owned droid manufacturing unit. Security cameras capture a hooded figure plowing through squadrons of troops with nothing but a blaster and a baton. When Cassian hears about it he shakes his head and doesn’t stop smiling. (K-2SO is less pleased.)

 

Bodhi dreams of softer things. He dreams of Chirrut and Baze and a planet that hums with energy and the echoes of Jedi, of life, of home. He dreams of Jyn, terrible and fierce in the burning Scarif sunlight, forging through earth and fire to deliver her father’s message. He dreams of warm hands and quiet humming and dark eyes, crooked smiles and the sound of gentle laughter, his captain, his friend, his –

Hm. Anyway.

The visions of his mother burning under the harsh light of the Death Star never truly go away, but Bodhi’s family still lives and breathes.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @rookbodhi


End file.
